Editing Michael Curtiz (section)

== Personal life ==
When he left for the United States, Curtiz left behind an [[illegitimate son]] and an illegitimate daughter.<ref name=Harmetz />{{rp|122}}  Around 1918, he married actress [[Lucy Doraine]], and they divorced in 1923. He had a lengthy affair with [[Lili Damita]] starting in 1925 and is sometimes reported to have married her, but film scholar [[Alan K. Rode]] states  in his 2017 biography of Curtiz that this is a modern legend, and there is no contemporary evidence to support it.<ref>https://rode, "Curtiz: A Life in Film" page 68</ref>  Their obituaries make no mention of such a marriage.<ref name="apobit">{{cite news |title=MICHAEL CURTIZ, DIRECTOR, 72, DIES |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/04/12/82123912.html?auth=login-email&pageNumber=35 |access-date=September 23, 2020 |agency=Associated Press |work=The New York Times |date=April 12, 1962}}</ref><ref name="damitaapobit">{{cite news |title=Lili Damita |url=https://variety.com/1994/scene/people-news/lili-damita-119554/ |access-date=September 23, 2020 |agency=Associated Press |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=March 24, 1994}}</ref>

Curtiz had left Europe before the rise of [[Nazism]]: other members of his family were less fortunate. He once asked Jack Warner, who was going to Budapest in 1938, to contact his family and help them get exit visas. Warner succeeded in getting Curtiz's mother to the U.S., where she spent the rest of her life living with her son. He could not rescue Curtiz's only sister, her husband, or their three children, who were sent to [[Auschwitz]], where her husband and two of the children were murdered.<ref name=Marton>Marton, Kati. ''Great Escape'', Simon & Schuster (2006)</ref>{{rp|124}}

Curtiz paid part of his own salary into the [[European Film Fund]], a benevolent association which helped European [[refugee]]s in the [[Film industry|film business]] establish themselves in the [[Cinema of the United States|U.S]].<ref name=Harmetz>[[Aljean Harmetz|Harmetz, Aljean]]. ''Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of "Casablanca"''.  Orion Publishing Co, 1993., p. 221 {{ISBN|0297812947}}</ref>

In 1933, Curtiz became a [[Naturalization|naturalized U.S. citizen]].<ref>''Kingsport Times'' (Kingsport, Tennessee), April 27, 1941, p. 26</ref> By the early 1940s, he had become fairly wealthy, earning $3,600 per week and owning a substantial estate, complete with [[polo pitch]].<ref name=Harmetz />{{rp|76}} One of his regular polo partners was Hal B. Wallis, who had met Curtiz on his arrival in the country and had established a close friendship with him. Wallis' wife, the actress [[Louise Fazenda]] and Curtiz's third wife, [[Bess Meredyth]], an actress and screenwriter, had been close since before Curtiz's marriage to Meredyth in 1929. Curtiz had numerous affairs; Meredyth once left him for a short time but they remained married until 1961, when they separated.<ref name=Harmetz />{{rp|121}} They remained married until his death.<ref name="apobit" /><ref>https://rode, "Curtiz: A Life in Film" page 535</ref> She was Curtiz's helper whenever his need to deal with [[Screenplay|scripts]] or other elements went beyond his grasp of  [[English language|English]] and he often phoned her for advice when presented with a problem while filming.<ref name=Harmetz />{{rp|123}}

Curtiz was the stepfather of movie and television director [[John Meredyth Lucas]], who talks about him in his autobiography ''Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood''.